We have all looked at those 30 day workout plans to lean and mean abs and tried it out. How far did you get? Day 10? Daily routines of sit ups and crunches that promise to get you a six pack are ridiculous. They are lying and don’t work. It’s a waste of time.
You will never get a toned stomach from doing sit ups. Seriously, the sit up is one of the most incorrectly done exercises ever. I never do them. EVER! To tone up your stomach it’s basically all about clean eating. I won’t beat about the bush here, I'll be brutally honest in saying if you think that daily 3.30itis chocolate or those biscuits you have in the morning with your coffee isn’t going to do much, you’re wrong and you don’t want it bad enough. I’m all for a treat by the way, but daily treats won’t beat the bulge.
To break it down simply you pretty much have your abdominal muscles covered by a layer of fat. If you work on your abs (i.e doing sit ups) you will make them grow which will push your stomach out and you will look bigger and unless you can burn down the layer of fat you have covering them you will never have a great looking toned stomach. Healthy eating = Burning the fat. It takes a long time. I’m going to be the harsh realist here and say it’s not going to happen overnight, nor in a few weeks. It takes a hell of a lot of clean eating, the right exercises and patience to tone up the stomach. Trust me I know. These photos of my progress were taken 4 months apart.
The right foods, the right exercises, a bucket load of willpower and persistence will pay off. I don’t claim to have an amazing stomach, it’s a work in progress but I sure do know about the hard work it takes to even get this far.
THE BIG LESSONS
CUT DOWN ON ALCOHOL. So many drinks are loaded with sugar and then you add that to coke, lemonade, juice all containing a mass amount of sugar which goes straight to your waist. Same with pretty much all alcoholic drinks. They don’t call it a beer gut for nothing.
INTOLERANCES. This was a big lesson for me. I thought I was eating well by eating healthy wheat and dairy options but it was not good for my body. Naturally we cannot digest wheat and dairy very well which is why most people have problems with these foods. Cutting down on wheat (bread, pasta, pizza, cereals) and dairy (milk, cheese, butter) will cut down the stomach fat.
FIBRE. Get your digestive system moving with plenty of natural sources of fibre (grains, green leafy vegetables, oat bran). High fibre will reduce bloating and reduce the fat.
CORE EXERCISES. As mentioned before I never do sit ups, I always stick to core exercises like planks and variations to those, mountain climbers, leg raises and the occasional oblique exercises for getting rid of those love handles like Russian twists with a medicine ball. Strengthening the core is vital in getting that flat toned stomach.
There doesn't seem to be a link between situps and fatness here - just that unhealthy eating makes you fat. Crunches and Situps can be great exercises when done right (and cause back problems amongst other things when done wrong) but they still build muscle like most other core exercises. This should be renamed "Why you can't get a 6 pack without eating healthy" or "Why you need to combine a good diet with exercise", not "Why sit ups make you fat" as there is no evidence to suggest they do in this post - but plenty about unhealthy eating.
ReplyDelete